Researchers studying achievement motivation have shown that the way individuals think about ability can have important implications for learning and motivation. However, many unanswered questions about the nature, development, and consequences of ability conceptions remain. The proposed research examines these and related issues among children ages 4 through 10. I describe three sets of studies designed to address the following questions: l) What is the nature of young children's conceptions of ability and how do these conceptions change with development? 2) What factors serve to systematically shape ability conceptions? 3) What individual differences in ability conceptions are evident, and what are their antecedents and consequences? The proposed research looks at these questions using theories and methodologies from within psychology, including cognitive and social development, and from disciplines outside of psychology, such as anthropology and sociology, which focus on larger social systems. Together, these studies should provide a nuanced picture of the way in which children of different ages reason about ability, the factors affecting their reasoning, and the motivational consequences.